FAQs

 

  • Townships are underdeveloped and racially segregated urban and rural communities formed over the decades before Apartheid ended in 1994. Townships include Africans, Indians (from India) and Coloreds (mixed race). Some township children have never met a white person before as white South Africans, who make up about 10% of the population, rarely enter townships. More than half of the unemployed live in South Africa’s 5,000 townships. Challenges include the lack of sanitation services, electricity, clean water, medical clinics and adequately resourced schools. Poverty, food scarcity, gangs, drugs, crime and overcrowding are make these settings less safe. Nevertheless, there is a rich atmosphere and sense of pride in many townships. Soweto is the largest township with a population the size of Houston, on land 1/18th that of Houston. ASAP and our partner PEN are helping communities emancipate from the ongoing legacy of apartheid, one Preschool Toy Library Training Center after another.

  • A creche is a daycare for 20-40 preschool children typically in a small apartment where there are few toys, if any. The owner and her staff may not have graduated from high school. Children are often crowded in front of a television all day while their mothers work, look for work, or beg. High quality preschools in South Africa are beyond the financial and geographic reach of the population ASAP serves. However, as soon as daycares register with ASAP and PEN, we call them preschools. The caregiver/babysitters are immediately called teachers. The training, borrowing of toys, and the joy of learning through play begin immediately!

  • Each kit contains toys and activities which build capacities such as:

    • Perception skills – concentration, logical thinking, cause & effect, memory, language, auditory, color & shape recognition

    • Fine Motor and pre-reading skills such as sequencing, and puzzles

    • Basic math & science concepts

    • Movement & balance includes gross motor skills, body awareness, spatial orientation

    • Music Toy Boxes include instruments for 35 children

  • Our South African ASAP coordinator Marlese Nel, and PEN Forum staff select toys to fit PEN’s theme-based curriculum. Marlese orders items from suppliers she knows having owned an educational toy store herself. The ASAP team and PEN Forum staff assemble the PAL Kits and additional items such as balance beams, hoola hoops, sports equipment, and sets of musical instruments. Kits can be shipped anywhere in South Africa.

  • Educational toys are stored at the Preschool Library Training Center Hubs. PEN coach-trainers facilitate weekly lesson planning sessions for preschool owners, who collaborate as they decide on the toys, games, and activities they will borrow for that lesson. Monthly workshops mentor these budding teachers in early childhood development and they learn how each toy and activity develops critical capacities. Teachers return toys the next week, borrowing a new selection for that week’s theme and foundational skill development focus.

  • Marlese Nel obtains educational toys often at wholesale prices. Suppliers are excited about ASAP’s mission and keep costs low to help maximize our outreach. Covid increased costs, especially for shipping. Tariffs may impact by 2026. Most PAL kits of 5 toys, games, puzzles, sports equipment, and books cost $75.

  • As soon as an informal daycare registers at an ASAP-PEN Educational Toy Library Training Center, the owner and her staff are referred to as teachers (or practitioners), and the daycare is called a school. 

    Owners are entrepreneurs who are thrilled to learn about early childhood development and how the items they borrow fuel critical skills and capacities in children.

    ASAP and PEN do not give handouts. They stock an Incentive Store full of items owners want to keep permanently in their preschools. Owners and their staff accumulate points by attending trainings and weekly lesson planning sessions, and for improving their settings and their teaching ability. They are rewarded with “earn to own points” enabling them to purchase items at the Incentive Store which are not part of the toy libraries and are otherwise unaffordable such as first aid kits, fire extinguishers, scooters, balance beams, etc. ASAP has purchased dozens of dolls beautifully clothed by volunteer knitters for the Incentive Store. ASAP’s fundraising fall 2025 focus is to stock the Incentive Store with sets of 110 handmade wooden blocks which each cost $100. According to Maria Nienaber, who heads the PEN Young Children Program, “Blocks are golden! They are the most important educational item a preschool can own.” Owners take great pride in what they have earned for their schools.

  • ASAP is much more than a “feel-good” opportunity for donors. Donors contribute to ending one of the root causes of generational poverty—the early childhood education gap.  Your donations fund a justice marathon, not an altruistic sprint.  With our effective, simple, and replicable model, we hope to catalyze the systemic and societal changes required for all children to access preschool education regardless of their “zipcode”. 

  • PEN (www.pen.org.za) is a 30-year old faith-based nonprofit in Pretoria, South Africa which has been working to uplift communities including adults, youth and preschool children who are trapped in the cycle of poverty. PEN stands for Participate, Envision, Navigate. ASAP establishes educational toy libraries where PEN’s preschool coaches provide weekly training to owners who want to develop their daycares into preschools. The informal partnership between ASAP and PEN involves continual communication and discernment about how best to pursue our shared mission of ensuring that every child in South Africa can access a quality preschool education to thrive in school and life.

  • Unfortunately not. The need to order many of each educational game, puzzle, and resource as well as the cost of shipping make donating items from the USA impractical. Marlese Nel orders toys from suppliers she knows, usually at cost, as the retired owner of a store of educational toys. Donors can specify that they wish to fund a particular kind of toy such as $20 pairs of dolls or sets of wooden blocks at $110. These cannot be borrowed from the toy libraries. Owners purchase these coveted items from the PEN incentive store with points earned by attending weekly trainings and progressing on goals to improve their preschools.